Inmate death triggers reform

An inmate serving a life sentence was indicted Thursday in the murder of a cellmate as corrections officials announced tougher measures to try to prevent similar tragedies.

Richard Conner was indicted in Will County on two counts of first-degree murder for strangling Jameson Leezer, 37, a petty criminal who was only 16 days away from his release when he was found dead in April in the cell the two shared at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet.

The slaying highlighted a perilous flaw in how non-violent offenders sent to maximum-security prisons for disciplinary infractions have been locked up in the same cells with predatory inmates who are serving long sentences and have little to lose.

A spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections said Thursday the department has begun using a more comprehensive screening procedure before placing two inmates in the same cell in segregation units. Inmates with histories of assault or other disciplinary infractions are isolated from the prison population in segregation.

The change was prompted by Leezer's murder and an investigation earlier this year by the Tribune into a similar homicide in 2004 at another Illinois maximum-security prison.

In that case, authorities at the Menard Correctional Center housed Corey Fox, a psychotic murderer serving a life sentence, with first-time inmate Joshua Daczewitz, even though Fox warned prison officials he would "erase" his cellmate if he wasn't moved. Two months later, Fox strangled Daczewitz.

"There was some breakdown in communication, which is why we have implemented a more comprehensive double-celling review form which must be completed before an inmate in segregation can be double-celled," said Januari Smith, a spokeswoman for the Corrections Department.

Among the changes, Smith said, is that corrections staff now must investigate whether an inmate considered for double-celling has ever been locked up at the prisons housing the state's most troublesome inmates, the "super-max" prison in Downstate Tamms and the maximum-security prison in Pontiac.

The new two-page screening form also requires authorities to report if an inmate has "prior assaultive behavior." In addition, medical and mental health officials must sign off to ensure an inmate's history has been properly reviewed.

Smith said that all inmates currently double-celled in segregation units have been reviewed under the new screening procedures.

Conner was serving life for killing a clerk in the robbery of a jewelry store on Chicago's West Side in 1991. He had been housed alone at Tamms until he severely injured himself in December in a suicide attempt. He was transferred to Stateville to undergo dialysis treatment and was eventually housed with Leezer, who had a non-violent background and was nearing the end of a 5-year sentence for stealing a car.

Prison authorities had classified Leezer as "vulnerable," meaning he should have been kept away from dangerous inmates.

Leezer's uncle, William, said Thursday he is pleased Conner was finally charged with murder but angry it took so long. He plans on filing a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Corrections Department.

"I think that [the Corrections Department], the warden, the head of segregation, the people who put them together in the same cell, they've got to be held accountable," he said in a telephone interview from his Florida home.